Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian said
the U.S. Navy needs more ships with the protection and firepower
to survive an advanced adversary, not just “niche platforms,”
weeks after she ordered cuts in the $34 billion Littoral Combat
Ship program.

Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox’s remarks in
a San Diego speech yesterday in part reflect Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel’s concerns about the ship designed for shallow
coastal waters, said a defense official who asked not to be
identified discussing private deliberations at the Pentagon.

Addressing the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics
Association and the Naval Institute, Fox said “the threats to
surface combatants continue to grow -- not just from advanced
military powers, but from the proliferation of more advanced,
precise anti-ship munitions around the globe. Clearly, this puts
a premium on underseas capabilities -- submarines -- that can
deploy and strike with relative freedom of movement.”

The Littoral Combat Ship, made in two versions by Lockheed
Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd., is a lightly armed vessel intended
for roles from submarine-hunting to mine-sweeping. Questions
have been raised about its mounting costs and survivability in
combat. Last month, Fox directed the Navy to truncate the
program to 32 ships after 2019 rather than the 52 previously
planned by 2026.

While Fox didn’t mention the ship by name in her speech,
her comment about “niche platforms that can conduct a certain
mission in a permissive environment” could be “read as a
confirmation of her views” on it, Byron Callan, a defense
analyst with Washington-based Capital Alpha Partners LLC, said
in an e-mail.

Not Survivable

Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational
testing, has written that the Littoral Combat Ship “is not
expected to be survivable in high-intensity combat” because its
designs don’t include features “necessary to conduct sustained
combat operations in a major conflict as expected for the Navy’s
other surface combatants.” The Navy has acknowledged the
vessels are being built to the service’s lowest level of
survivability, a Pentagon-approved decision that sought to
balance cost and performance.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst at the American
Enterprise Institute, a Washington public policy organization,
said what’s interesting is that Fox offered her rationale now,
before the presentation next month of the Pentagon’s proposed
fiscal 2015 budget and before she’s replaced by Robert Work,
President Barack Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary.

LCS Supporter

Work, who was an active supporter of the Littoral Combat
Ship when he was Navy undersecretary, faces a nomination hearing
by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 13.

Fox is “making a point of saying, yes, presence is
important, but presence with ships that aren’t survivable or
capable isn’t the kind of presence we need,” said Todd
Harrison, a defense analyst with the Washington-based Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Her emphasis on “the survivability of our battle fleet”
may bolster submarine builders Huntington Ingalls Industries
Inc. and General Dynamics Corp., as well as Raytheon Co., the
maker of the sub-launched Tomahawk cruise missile and surface
ship self-defense systems.

Fox also warned against the “natural tendency to hang on
to combat forces at the expense of enablers,” such as
electronic warfare and other countermeasures.

“In many respects the U.S. Navy has been so dominant for
so long at sea that I worry we never really embraced these
solutions,” she said. “The time to start investing in the next
generation of electronic warfare is now.”

Northrop Grumman Corp. and BAE Systems Plc are leading
makers of electronic combat gear. Boeing Co. is building the
Navy’s newest electronics-jamming aircraft.